X-Message-Number: 16599 From: "George Smith" <> References: <> Subject: Let the lemmings leap. (Can't stop them anyway). Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 18:59:30 -0700 Olaf Henny wrote quite correctly in message 16585, "Most who consider cryonics on a casual basis see it as follows: "At age 75 I will finally succumb to cancer. They will freeze me and, if lucky, thaw me out after 100 years. Then I will live another 5 years as a stranger in a strange land and at subjective age 80 I will die of a failing heart. So what's the point?" Olaf, you are right. There may be a FEW people who will understand that maybe, just maybe, things could be radically better in the future. Alerting those few to this idea could cause them to pass the supreme IQ test of cryonics. But your example actually makes my argument even clearer. So I would ONLY gain 5 more YEARS of life? 60 more MONTHS? 1800 more DAYS! 43,200 more HOURS! 2,592,000 more MINUTES? Then I WANT it. period. The point is that I WILL choose those 5 years of breathing WITHOUT having to be "sold" on the positive value of life first. Tremendous unending pain COULD drive me to suicide during those 5 years potentially but I somehow suspect that not much else could. Like Albert Finney's musical version of "Scrooge", I feel compelled to agree that, "I like life. Life likes me. I make life a perpetual spree! Eating food, drinking wine. Thinking who'd like the pleasure to dine me! I like living the life of leisure, pausing only to take my pleasure! I like life, here and now. Life and I made a mutual vow. 'Til I die, life and I, we'll both try to be better somehow. And if life were a woman she would be my wife. Why? Because I like life!" Those who still need convincing that breathing is a worthwhile activity are welcome to their sick view. Merely because a perspective is popular does not make it sane. I honestly DO believe that 6 billion lemmings CAN be wrong, and ARE wrong. Future generations will look back at our present day pro-death perspectives and shake their heads in disbelief. "How could they have all been so STUPID?" will probably be the final pronouncement of judgement by the future on our age, this the last generation of mortals. Those who hate life in principle are welcome to leave anytime. (Can't stop 'em anyway). Not me. I like life. That's how I see it. George Smith CI member Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=16599